Death and the Sun (17 page)

Many knowledgeable fans and critics dispute this idea. They argue that today's bulls and bullfighters are no worse, and probably better, than the bulls and bullfighters of earlier eras. They also point out that bullfighting has always been infected with a rampant nostalgia for a supposed better time when bullfighters were real men and bulls were monsters. Hemingway observed this phenomenon in the late 1920s, when people lamented the lost world of the late nineteenth century. “Historians speak highly of all dead bullfighters,” he wrote. “Bullfighting has always been considered by contemporary chroniclers to be in a period of decadence.”

Still, as crazy as the hecklers of section seven could seem at times, there was some method to their
torista
madness, because in the end there is no ruling authority in bullfighting except the fans. If the ticket-buying public demands fierce bulls and proper bullfighting, then they'll get it. Otherwise, for the same rate of pay most matadors would just as soon face mini-bulls and perform in safe and easy ways. Much as section seven's detractors would deny it, Madrid was one of the few rings in Spain where there was a good chance of seeing difficult bulls and matadors risking their all. García Lorca may have called bullfighting “the last serious thing,” but as Noël Chandler once said, “Madrid is the last serious thing in bullfighting.” And that was due in some measure to section seven.

One person who disliked section seven was Fran, a matador who represented everything the
toristas
despised. The great
torista
cities are in northern and central Spain, places like Bilbao, Madrid, and Pamplona, whose bullrings prided themselves on presenting big, ornery bulls. Fran was from Sevilla, in southern Spain, where people are more interested in the aesthetics of bullfighting than its danger or difficulty.
Toristas
are usually left wing politically, and admire bullfighters who came up from poverty. But Fran grew up in wealth, and his family was associated with right-wing politics.
Toristas
prefer bulls from the difficult breeders; Fran made no secret of his admiration for the matador-friendly Domecq bulls.

Fran also didn't help his cause with section seven when he said in a newspaper interview that the best thing to do with that part of the Madrid ring was to put a bomb underneath it and blow it up. Yet true to his stated indifference to matadors, Salvador Valverde said he was willing to let bygones be bygones. “You tell him that we don't have anything against him,” Valverde told me. “We don't care about him more or less than anybody else. If he does well we'll cheer for him, and I hope he does well the next time he's here.”

 

At around eleven o'clock that night old Madrid exploded into life. Real Madrid had won its match in Glasgow, defeating the German team Bayer Leverkusen to become European champions. Everyone was smiling and wearing the team colors, blue and white. Cars full of revelers raced along the Calle de Segovia, windows rolled down, the occupants singing, horns honking in disjointed rhythms. Perhaps this was a fitting end to a night on which a good portion of the public in Las Ventas, the greatest bullring in the world, had shown they cared more for a soccer match than for the last three bulls of a first-class corrida. It seemed emblematic of the way bullfighting had yielded to soccer and other more modern entertainments.

Just then three boys staggered into view, drunk and delirious with team spirit. They were carrying a large Real Madrid flag, and one of them grabbed it, jumped into the middle of the Calle de Segovia, and performed clumsy
verónicas
against the onrushing traffic. Here was a perfect illustration of bullfighting's place in Spanish society. True, bullfighting wasn't as popular in Spain as it had been in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, before soccer and television, movies and pop music. It was equally true, however, that bullfighting continued to exert a strong hold on the Spanish psyche. Despite its regional quality, and despite the many Spaniards who were hostile or indifferent to it, bullfighting remained an enduring symbol, perhaps the most important symbol of Spanishness.

 

Madrid, May 21
. There were storm clouds in the sky and the ring was stormy with anticipation of Fran's second and last corrida in Madrid, his final afternoon of responsibility for the spring. Fran was on with José Tomás, the undisputed champ of anyone who claimed to be a sophisticated aficionado, and interest in seeing José Tomás couldn't have been higher. Just that morning one local paper ran a headline describing the bullfight as “
José Tomás y Dos Mas
”—“José Tomás and Two Others.” As the ring began to fill it was apparent that most of the regular season subscribers weren't there: they had sold their seats, at a nice profit, to a better-dressed crowd. These were what the Madrileños called
gente clave
(key people), wealthy types who make it their business to be seen at every important event in town. They weren't bullfight fans. They had come for the spectacle of José Tomás.

Thirty minutes before the bullfight was scheduled to start, Noël was bellied up to one of the bars under the stands, nursing a cold beer and some dark thoughts about Fran. It hadn't been a rewarding spring to follow Fran around, and Noël was depressed by Fran's work in Sevilla and Madrid. He was also glum about the unhappy news coming out of the
prensa rosa
that a reconciliation between Fran and his wife looked less and less likely. Noël loved Fran and he also loved Eugenia, and he wanted them to make up. “It looks like Eugenia is leaving him,” Noël said, “and I might do the same if he doesn't get his act together. Then again, I've said that a thousand times now, and every time I say it he does something beautiful that brings me back.”

The bulls on this occasion were from the ranch of Martelilla, a Domecq breed from Andalucía. The less said about Fran's two performances the better. The first bull simply lacked the stamina for a full bullfight. It arrived at the act of the
muleta
in a state of exhaustion, and Fran did little more than peg a few lackadaisical passes and kill. The second bull was what the Spanish would call a
manso perdido
(a totally tame animal). It flew from Fran at every opportunity. Fran killed it, and it was
adiós
, Madrid.

In the end, Fran was a footnote to an afternoon that belonged to José Tomás, and it was striking to see how different the two men were. Fran was beautiful, tanned, and muscular. When he was performing well—“on song,” as Noël would say—his cape work was natural, graceful, and direct. He stood still, reached out his hands, and brought the bull toward him, never contorting his body or exaggerating his gestures. Fran's art pleased because it conveyed a sense of harmony and honesty—of a lad imposing his will on a dangerous animal. Whenever Fran performed he was like the star of his own Hollywood action film. He risked himself but you always had the feeling he'd get out of the scrap somehow. His work was the abnegation of death and danger.

By contrast, José Tomás was gangly, pasty, and ugly. He had a sinister face composed of an old man's bushy eyebrows, hollow eyes, a flat nose, and a mouth in desperate need of orthodontia. When José Tomás worked he twisted and tortured his body into exaggerated attitudes. He bent his skinny legs, thrust out his groin and belly toward the bull, and hid his chin in his concave chest, scrunching his face into a scowl. Fran was as light on his toes as a boxer; José Tomás had a leaden stance. This was the very secret of his success. Through his heavy feet and his sickly look, he gave the audience the feeling that he lacked the will or the ability to get out of harm's way. This meant that every encounter with the bull was undertaken as an all-or-nothing gamble. José Tomás was a tragedy waiting to happen, and that was what his fans paid to see.

Describing his performance the year before in Madrid, José Tomás said a lot about himself as a matador. “I neither cut two ears nor ended up in the hospital,” he told an interviewer from the magazine
6 Toros 6
. “Nothing! That is the worst for a bullfighter.” Fran would never say something like that. He never showed an ounce of fear, but he was always clear that he had no desire to court injury or worse.

José Tomás's second bull of the afternoon was black with a gray stripe along its spine. It didn't show much promise during the first two chapters of the bullfight, and it charted a cautious way during the third of the red cape, especially when challenged to its left horn. But in a dramatic and unusual move, José Tomás began his performance by working to that very same left horn, in a series of dangerous
naturales
, the cape held in the left hand, the cloth hanging limp, without benefit of a sword to spread it. He was taking on the bull's more difficult horn and doing it with a minimum amount of protection.

He shuffled to the center of the ring and stood still, his feet flat on the sand. The bull remained in front of him, looking tired and not at all eager to charge. José Tomás spread his legs and held out his left hand for a
natural
. He shouted and the bull engaged. The bull was hesitant, trotting and meandering as it made its way into the charge. But José Tomás helped the bull along, persuading and cajoling and seeing the pass through to completion. “
Olé!
” came the response, a big one. José Tomás unspooled three linked
naturales
. He was about to finish the series with a classic chest pass when the bull flicked its big head in, chopping its horn at José's chest. Most matadors would have skipped backward, but not José Tomás. Feet rooted to the ground, he sucked in his stomach and the bull missed by inches.

“
Ahyeee!
” shouted the crowd. Then the people rose to their feet for a standing ovation.

 

After the corrida Fran's hotel suite was filled with friends, relatives, and admirers who shuffled around, waiting for a word from the great man. Fran was in the bedroom, spread out on the bed, naked apart from the customary white towel across his midriff. His body was limp; he looked exhausted. José Tomás had cut two ears that afternoon, something that was very hard to do in Madrid, and Fran had been a spectator, watching José Tomás take his victory lap around the ring. Fran's
apoderado
, Pepe Luis, was seated at the foot of the bed, trying to buck him up. Pepe Luis's main argument—as it would be all season long—was that Fran had drawn poor bulls, and the audience had shown poor judgment in not seeing the good in what Fran had done with them.

“Your bulls were terrible and so were José Tomás's,” Pepe Luis said. “But it was his crowd. For me his performance wasn't worth two ears in Madrid. Maybe two ears somewhere else, but not in Madrid.” (Pepe Luis's opinion was confirmed the following day in the newspapers. Most critics agreed that the Madrid crowd had been uncharacteristically generous toward José Tomás. But that is the way it goes in bullfighting: when you are the star of the moment, you get the breaks.)

One of Fran's friends poked his head in the door. He was a big fellow in a neat suit, a businessman of some sort, and he seemed blissfully unaware of any tension in the room. “You gotta hand it to José Tomás,” the man said, a smile on his face. “That son of a bitch did well today.”

Fran said nothing. He got up and went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He looked glum, his body sagging. He'd pulled himself out of his post-separation funk just for the chance to do something wonderful in his two corridas in Sevilla and two in Madrid. He'd had eight bulls in the two greatest bullrings in Spain, eight chances to triumph, more opportunities than many matadors saw in a lifetime, and he'd failed to capitalize on them. There had been no ears, no successes, and no vindication. The best Fran could hope for from the rest of the season was a long campaign of small victories, cutting ears one corrida at a time, relying on the cumulative effect of many lesser bullfights to make up for what hadn't happened in the big ones. The season was beginning to look like a washout. Little did Fran know how much worse it would get.

13

Tolosa, June 16
. The men assembled in the corrals behind the bullring. The cool mornings of spring were a memory by then, and the insistent heat of summer was baking the moisture out of the lush green hills that loomed beside the edges of the town. It was high noon. The men smiled and said hello in the Spanish way, grasping each other by the arms and giving stiff, back-patting hugs. Dressed in their jeans and short-sleeved shirts, the men looked like toreros. They were whippet thin, their hands were large and calloused, their faces weather-beaten. They walked like bullfighters too, arrogant and slouching, yet precise, in a way that was equal parts ballet dancer and gunslinger. And they had that quality of abstractedness, of not being entirely present, that is characteristic of people who do dangerous work for a living.

The corrals jutted out from the ring, forming a patchwork of rectangular enclosures separated by thick walls, with walkways running atop the walls. Some of the corrals were empty, but others contained bulls, and the bull smell was in the air. Six bulls were shambling around one of the enclosures, nosing in the muddy and dungy straw that covered the wet concrete floor. The bulls had been shipped in from a well-known ranch, Alcurrucén, but they were clearly the dregs of that year's herd. They were gangly animals with stubby horns more appropriate for oxen than bullfighting bulls, which was to be expected. This wasn't Madrid or Sevilla. This was Tolosa, a peasant town in the hills of the Basque Country, with a third-class bullring that had just enough money for third-class bulls.

The men peered down at the six bulls in the enclosure and took notes on small pads. The men were banderilleros working for the three matadors scheduled to perform in the afternoon's corrida. They'd come for the
sorteo
, the ceremony of sorting the bulls into three pairs and assigning a pair to each matador. The
sorteo
is designed to ensure that a matador will not have to face a pair of bulls that are larger, fiercer, better, or worse overall than any other matador has to face. The banderilleros discussed the bulls, referring to each animal by the number branded on its withers. Their talk was rapid and quiet, meant for their ears only. One man suggested that number fifty-one was big and dangerous-looking and might pair well with the docile number twenty-six. Heads nodded, and soon the other four bulls were paired off. There was no need for argument. Everyone there was a pro, and it was in everyone's interest to make the three pairs come out equal.